Author's Notes: This fic is a sequel to my other story 'Uncle.' It was written by request of the commenters of the masseffectkink meme on LJ who wanted to see what became of the Shepard and Garrus of that story. It's pretty fluffy, so, fair warning! While 'Uncle' isn't required reading for this story, I'd highly recommend it, since there are many details in that story that lay down the foundation and framework for this one.

Present. Earth.

The sun was setting, later and later each day, as Shepard leaned over the edge of the wooden railed balcony. Down below the home, on past the trees and foliage and the critters that found their habitat there, was a small bay, its surface calm and glassy as the day gave way to night. There was a rickety staircase off the decking that cut through the flora, a steep and treacherous climb even for her as of late, but the work more than paid off when it deposited you at the bottom of the hillside and on the sand of the small beach. Shepard climbed it twice a day, at minimum, even when the humidity set off a particularly bad ache in her knee or the weather grew unseasonably cool. Warm and tropical, or as close to it as they'd ever get: check.

The first night they'd settled there, Shepard had come out to that very porch, stood in the same spot. It had been barren then, missing the pieces of aging patio furniture that had seen better days now, but felt just as much like home as it did years later. The silence was what got to her most of all, the subtle roll of waves at the shore, the rustling of leaves, sounds of birds and bugs, all of it replacing the constant hum of engines and a ship alive in its own way under her feet.

Shepard raised her eyes to the sky above, the glimmer of stars already shining bright as the sky settled into navy blue tones. There were some days she missed it: the Normandy and camaraderie in the people that served both under and alongside her, maybe even the call to the mission, whatever it was on any given day. She had a place back then, a place where she'd belonged, but as the sound of laughter echoed out from the glass porch door cracked ajar behind her, it was an easy reminder that she had just as much here as she did before.

Back inside and shutting the door behind her—the house a perfectly preserved piece of architecture, a nod back to days even long before her time, with doors on hinges and details made out of carved pieces of wood rather than metal—Shepard followed the sound to the sunken living room, the surrounding walls made mostly of glass panes with with the odd support beam thrown in. It had unsettled her first, all that time ago, leaving her with a feeling of vulnerability that ordinary glass provided. She'd craved a fortress, a place locked down even tighter than the Normandy ever had been, but in time, the ability to gaze on out to the unobstructed view of relative isolation on a planet so green had turned into a comfort.

"Shouldn't you be getting ready for bed, Hannah?" She asked, leaning her shoulder against the doorframe, arms crossed over her chest. Though her words were serious, her tone and the smile at the corner of her mouth said otherwise.

From the floor, her daughter tilted her head up to regard her mother, thin wisps of hair that had pulled loose of her braid framing her face. Her clothes were in similar disarray, t-shirt twisted haphazardly and stained with what lunch and dinner had been, the little girl temporarily lost in her own world where things like keeping clean and neat didn't matter. Her face was sheepish, caught in the act of disobeying what her mother sometimes referred to as her direct orders, but like the clothing and her hair, it didn't matter—not really. Of all the things her mother could raise her voice about, bedtime was never one of them.

"Daddy said…" The girl offered as an excuse, but like always, never got to the part of her sentence where she actually had a reason for the disobedience.

"Mmhmm," Shepard hummed in reply, desperately trying to hold back the smile on her lips. Give that kid an inch, and she'd take a mile, and damn if the three and a half year old didn't always know when she could get away with murder. Bare feet hit the plush carpeting of the area rug her child played on, and Shepard settled down beside her, pulling Hannah into her lap. The girl didn't protest, not even a whine as her small hands abandoned what she'd been using, but rather, was content to be in her mother's grasp. Shepard kissed the crown of her head and brushed the hair from her daughter's face.

"Baby kicking?" Hannah questioned, her voice a near sing-song as she glanced up to her mother, blue eyes wide and large. With no hesitation—something that could be attributed to not only being a child and not knowing social conventions, but also the fact that this was her mother, and never had she felt in her short life that either of her parents didn't absolutely, completely, belong to her—she prodded her mother's stomach with her fingers.

There was some redirection of the girl's hand against Shepard's growing, but still not overly large stomach, until she held Hannah's palm in place. Both patiently waited another moment more until the subtle motion of a weak kick or perhaps just a shift of the as-yet-to-be-born baby reminded mother and sibling of her presence.

"You used to do that all the time," a third voice said, this one belonging to Garrus, as he entered the living room at the opposite end.

Hannah raised a disbelieving glance to her father, but then simply shook her head. "No."

"No?" He said with something of a laugh as he sat down beside them. Opening his arms to her, Hannah didn't even stop to bid goodbye to her mother and her new rival before climbing onto her father's lap. "Where do you think you came from, then?"

She considered the thought, nuzzling her head against Garrus' chest from where she sat on his thigh, his arms a tight ring of safety around her. "I was always here," she decided.

"That so?" Shepard asked, hand rubbing at one of her daughter's cool, bare feet. "Because I distinctly remember you right about…" Her hand returned to herself, and she stroked over the fabric pulled tightly over her stomach. "…Here. Keeping me up at night."

Hannah's brows furrowed together, her forehead crinkling in disagreement. "I'm too big."

"You were smaller," Garrus offered as a suggestion, brushing his forehead against the top of his daughter's head, then turning in towards Shepard to give her the same brush of affection just above her ear.

"Your Dad never used to put you down when you were a baby, I used to get jealous. You know, there was a time when Daddy belonged to me," Shepard said with a smile, meeting Garrus' gaze. "And now I have to share him with you and your sister when she comes."

In a childish move of selfishness, Hannah's tiny hands gripped at her father's clothing wherever she could reach, like the prospect of losing him to her mother was actually a likely reality. She gave a feigned glare towards her mother, though it ended up with a giggle. "Mine."

"Yeah, yeah," her mother teased right back.

While Garrus dragged his talons lightly up and down the stretch of his daughter's back, a habit grown out of how much she liked the slight scratchy feeling of it, he turned his focus on Shepard. "Feeling okay?"

A shoulder shrugged as she leaned back, her hands on the carpeting behind her as an added line of support. "You know me," she said cheekily, "I've always had worse."

"Doesn't exactly comfort me, Shepard, since I've seen you at your worst."

"Mommy," Hannah corrected as she pulled at the buttons on her father's clothes, playing with the pieces of molded plastic bound by thread. "Not Shepard."

"You're right, you're right," he said in response, and smoothed a hand over her hair. For so long he'd never seen the appeal of humanity's version of the Turian's fringe. It was always growing and always shedding, required too much care and product—though that fit in well with humanity's other favorite hobby: buying crap they didn't need, and not to mention it was a complete and utter time sink. Based on logic alone, he'd been fond of those short and tight cuts most of the military men had, but Shepard had ended up changing his viewpoint on hair, like so many other things.

Now, it was hard for him to not stroke a finger through his wife's—and she was his wife at least in spirit, if not on paper—hair, grown out as it was down past her shoulders. When it came to his daughter's hair, which, though thinner, was a similar shade to her mother's… well, he had no self control when it came to constantly brushing it from her face. Perhaps even more incriminating was the fact that he'd somewhere along the way picked up just how to weave locks of hair together in a braid and similar fashions—not that it had been particularly difficult, not compared to calibrating Thanix cannons, at least—but it was the thought of it all. Hair. Of all things he could love, Garrus Vakarian loved hair.

"My back's killing me already, but that's par for the course, right?"

Another human metaphor, and though he still didn't really understand exactly what it meant, he understood what she meant by it. He reached a hand, one not occupied in still curling around their daughter, over to rub at the small of her back, and with an appreciative sigh, he felt her body relax into it. Shepard leaned in and kissed his shoulder as a silent thanks.

"Mama," Hannah said with a yawn as she wiped a palm at her face, a poor attempt at staving off sleep. "Will the baby look like Daddy?"

Shepard's lips pursed. "What do you mean?"

She sat up a little straighter, though not straying far from the veil of closeness provided by resting against her father. "I," she said, hands gesticulating towards herself, palms touching to her chest. That was a new habit of hers, talking with her hands. "…Look like Mommy. The baby will be Daddy." There was a child's logic to it.

Before Shepard could even say a word to him or venture a look of panic at the topic her daughter was broaching on her own, Garrus was shaking his head, scoffing. "This one's all you."

How they ever planned on telling their children—or child, as until the last year they'd never been definitely sure about having more than one—about how they came to be, Shepard always imagined it at a far later age. Her voice caught in her throat. She was beginning to realize she hadn't given a young mind enough credit, or maybe she just had never really wanted to think about having that type of conversation in the first place, upsetting the little applecart she and Garrus had struggled to pull together on their own.

She shifted positions, this time on her knees beside Garrus and her daughter, as it at least gave her the semblance of control. "You know how Daddy's a Turian? And your Grandpa and your cousin Necalli are Turians too?"

Whether she was fully comprehending or not, Hannah nodded, her head pillowed against her father's chest.

"Well, me—I'm a human, from Earth, where we live. Your Dad's not from here, though. He's from far away, where everyone else looks like him. We've talked about Palaven, you remember, right?" Shepard struggled with her words, a hint of frustration growing as she tried to break down the facts enough for a child to understand, without leading to some three year old existential meltdown of sorts.

"You know your kitten?" Garrus interrupted, taking pity on Shepard. "Well, pretend that when she grows up, she falls in love with a dog."

"Daddy," Hannah admonished, her head shaking, "Cats hate dogs. I'd never let her play with one." There was a matter-of-factness to her.

"I know—but just pretend, alright?"

Catching where he was going with his analogy, Shepard picked up where he left off. "And one day they decide they want to have babies together. But, you've never seen a baby that's both cat and dog, have you? You've seen puppies and kittens, but not both."

The girl nodded, sucking on a few of her fingers out of an old habit of comfort stemming back to infancy.

"That's because they're too different. Deep in their DNA—you know the little tiny bits that make you you—it says they can only have babies with other cats or other dogs. And your Dad, you know how we always have to make him special breakfast or lunch or dinner? That's because in his DNA, he's very different from you and me."

Across her daughter's face, Shepard could read the call to sleep pulling at her. She wasn't sure if she'd remember any of this in the future, or actually understand any of it at all, but while she had the last lingering seconds of her daughter's attention, she'd finish what they started.

"But Daddy and I, we really wanted to have you, Hannah. So we went to a few doctors, and had them help us, and they put you," Shepard touched her stomach, the same space occupied by Hannah's sister, "right here, just like they put your sister. I can only have human babies, so that's what you are. Human."

Hannah tilted her head up to regard her father, taking in the features of his very different face. It was all she'd known her entire life, and just as she knew her mother's fleshy face and soft voice, she knew her father's plates and mandibles, the gravel-like tone he used when he tucked her into sleep.

"But your Daddy raised you, Hannah. And that's what matters, right? If I'm asleep or not home, who makes you breakfast in the morning?"

She didn't respond, just made a silent, suddenly shy glance up to her father.

Shepard nodded. "That's right, Daddy does. And when you were in my stomach, he used to spend hours talking to you so you'd know his voice. When you were born, he held you even before I did, baby. You know his Turian kisses?"

As if to demonstrate the point, Hannah pulled herself up as far as she could reach, her father's clothes and shoulders being used as leverage. She rubbed her forehead against his mandible, and Garrus returned the gesture, eyes shutting briefly as his forehead lingered against her scalp.

"You'd only been born for a minute when he gave you your first one." Tears wet her eyes at the memory of it, and before she'd realized it, Garrus held a palm to her cheek. "And he loves you, Hannah," she said, her eyes on the Turian she'd been attached to for a decade, though she spoke to her daughter. "Just as much as I love you. So no, your sister won't look like Daddy. She'll look like you and me. But—" Shepard lightly touched a finger to the girl's nose. "You've got his blue eyes, don't you?"

Hannah gave a contented sigh, happy with the answer even if most of it had gone in one ear and out the other. "Mommy," she whispered, eyes shutting sleepily as she relaxed against her father once again, "you talk too much."

All either of her parents could do in response, was laugh.

"Mm, and this is why you were supposed to have taken a bath and been in bed a half hour ago."

"Damn—" Garrus said with a regretful shake of his head. "I came in here to tell her the water was ready and completely forgot about it when I sat down." He stroked a hand over Hannah's back, trying to rouse her. "Gotta get up, Han."

"Dad's right," her mother said as she stood, stretching her tired muscles that only ached further from being twisted and uncomfortable on the floor. "Got a long day of travel ahead of us tomorrow."

"No," Hannah pleaded, extending the vowel as she whined, only burying her face further into her father's cowl as he, too, stood up and partially jostled her from position even as he kept a tight hold on her. "Just sleep."

Garrus glanced to Shepard for some kind of decision on the matter, and the ever so slight shrug of her shoulders gave him the answer. At the far end of the room, he stopped and turned before exiting completely. "I'll get her changed and in bed. Go take it easy."

He found her in the living room later, though judging by the mug of hot tea in her hands, she'd left and come back at some point. Laid up across the couch, her back to an arm of it, Garrus lifted her legs to sit with her, draping them back across his lap. He rubbed at a bare ankle, even if she hadn't quite reached the stage from her last pregnancy when they'd ended up swollen.

"That was some quick thinking," he said with a click of his mandibles, his kind's equivalent of a soft laugh.

"I'm useful for two things now, apparently. Planning suicide missions and explaining to toddlers why they don't have their father's good looks."

With a mock indignant tone, he canted his head towards her. "You used to dig these scars."

She raised a leg, dragged the upper surface of her foot against the opposite side of his face and along the particularly worn mandible. "Believe me," her foot dropped back to his lap, "I still do."

"Oh really?" And there was a hint of a husky tone to his already scratchy voice. He shifted, moving between her legs and leaning forward to take the cup out of her hands and set it on the floor beside the sofa. Kneeling between her thighs, he took the moment of silence and privacy for all it was worth, dragging his rough plated lips along her throat in a particularly human-like gesture.

Shepard let her warmed hands slip around to the back of his skull, feeling at the underside of his fringe as he gave a throaty, but quiet, moan in response to her gentle touch. Between her thighs, she felt the hard rocking of his plated pelvis pressing into her, her stomach not yet big enough to completely get in the way and complicate things entirely. "Don't start what you won't finish, Vakarian."

"Who said I won't? Hannah's asleep, we're all packed. Seems like I've got a few hours to kill," his words mumbled against her as he moved down, hands desperately pulling at her clothing to help her get free of them. She sat up a little better, letting him tug the fabric of her shirt off and then her bra—an item he'd mastered the removal of sometime ago—and immediately went in for her exposed breasts. He was gentle and careful with the increased size, rough tongue laving against a sensitive nipple as she arched her back in towards his touch.

"Garrus," she moaned, only too willing to let him do what he wanted.

Against him, he could feel the insistence of her hips, eager and jealous of the affections they were being denied. He relinquished his attention on her breast and headed lower, brushing his forehead against the skin to one side of her navel, his quiet acknowledgement of the unborn child still growing. Beyond the hump of her stomach, though, he worked at once again peeling back her clothing, taking shorts and briefs together.

Still fully clothed, but unwilling to wait any longer, Garrus glanced up towards Shepard as she lay across the piece of furniture—a piece that had particularly seen its fair share of action over the years—and for a moment let it sink in all the ways that things had changed. Time had passed too quickly, he thought, far too quickly. He'd blinked, or so it felt like, and years had gone by. He was a father, twice over now, and no longer did time get measured in battles won and lost, people dead and buried. It was the slight change of seasons, birthdays, and firsts. Firsts, not like trips through the Omega relay, but instead like his daughter's steps, Shepard giving birth, or the first time he'd held his daughter and really, truly, felt like a father.

Shepard nudged his cheek with the inside of her knee. "You okay?"

He nodded, and leaned forward, listening to her moan as he tasted her on his tongue.